"I demand time off."
I said it with utmost seriousness.
It was midday. The location was My Pretty Home—otherwise known as the Demon Lord's Castle. Even though it was late summer, the cavern provided a pleasantly cool environment. Despite spending the summer in what was arguably the ultimate summer retreat—a dungeon—my mood remained thoroughly gloomy.
"…Excuse me?"
Lapis, who had stopped by for a consultation regarding the mass cultivation of black herbs, looked at me with an expression that clearly asked what kind of nonsense the Demon Lord was about to spout this time.
"I want to rest. I want to have fun. I want to be lazy."
"Ugh…"
Her gaze shifted to something closer to "what kind of trash heap did this crawl out of." That said, my seriousness hadn't diminished in the slightest. It had been roughly three or four months since I'd entered the world of Dungeon Attack. In that time, I had lived diligently. Excessively diligently.
Defeating adventure parties, mining ores, disguising supply runs, recruiting talent. For someone who had essentially been unemployed back in the original world, the workload was more than enough to feel overwhelming. Truth be told, I belonged to a breed of people who were quite far removed from the noun "diligence" to begin with.
'Back when I was worried about whether I'd live or die tomorrow, I could at least endure because the urgency kept me going… But still.'
Recently, the threat posed by adventure parties had also weakened. After all, only F-rank ones were showing up. I had handed command of the monster troops to Laura so she could hone her tactics, and she handled the adventurers with absolute finesse. My workload had shrunk considerably lately.
To top it all off, a strange bout of mood swings had settled in. Ever since Jack died, I'd been in this state. My emotions seesawed constantly. Then again, when you're slaughtering people by the dozens—adventure parties visited the dungeon like clockwork every fortnight—it would be strange if a mental disorder *didn't* set in. I made a cold, rational assessment: I needed rest.
When I explained this, Lapis nodded.
"Demon Lord Syndrome."
"Huh?"
"It's not officially recognized in academia, but it's a condition that's been informally given a name. As you know, a Demon Lord empathizes without filter with the emotions of demi-humans, monsters, and the like. Because of that, Demon Lords periodically fall into mood swings."
Good lord.
Now I saw it—being a Demon Lord was a 3D job. Constantly having your life threatened, earning money, managing a dungeon, and on top of it all, mood swings as an occupational hazard?
"Has anything completely out-of-left-field emotions come up recently, perhaps?"
"...Yeah. It's like this energy just surges out of nowhere, and then sadness hits."
"A Demon Lord vividly perceives the emotions of others, which makes the boundaries of the self extremely unstable. Having other people's emotions and thoughts coexisting inside you is only natural. Other Demon Lords employ various methods to maintain their sense of self, but it seems Lord Dantalion had no such countermeasures."
On top of that, mild dissociative identity symptoms too.
I sank into depression at lightning speed. The realization that this depression was also an occupational hazard made me even more depressed. I'm probably done for...
"Hehaha. I'm a piece of trash. Back in my original world, I was a guy who couldn't so much as lift a finger for anyone, and here I am trying to live the good life by killing humans like Jack. Trash beyond trash—the king of trash. Heh heh, I'm the Trash King... Mother, I'm sorry..."
As I sat digging at the floor in the corner of the Demon Lord's chamber, Lapis spoke like my attending physician.
"Severe case."
"That's why I'm demanding paid leave!"
I let out a squawking yell.
"I'm too depressed! Nothing feels like living. Why do those adventurer bastards keep showing up in places where the only food is fly leg hairs?! Every time you lot die, something inside me gets chipped away!"
That was when Laura entered the Demon Lord's chamber. Ever since the door had been blown off its hinges by Leaf's axe blade, the chamber had been sporting a refreshingly open entrance. The girl was clutching something round in her right hand.
"Lajulis, it's been a while."
She gave Lapis a quick greeting, then hurled what was in her hand straight at me. The round object rolled all the way to my feet.
"I've repelled the intruders."
It was a human head.
"That one was their leader. He put up quite a stubborn fight. Hmph."
Laura smiled as if to add, *Of course, he was no match for me*. The girl—three months past her sixteenth birthday—proudly chattered on about how she had tactically annihilated an entire adventuring party of a staggering twenty-five people.
"—And then, wouldn't you know it, they tried to pull back in a hurry. But the ambush I'd hidden behind them smashed into their rear, and their formation collapsed in no time. Everything went exactly according to plan. Honestly, I never imagined a young lady could have this kind of talent for military strategy. It feels like I've discovered a whole new side of myself I never knew existed—my heart's racing. Dantalion, I can only be in awe of your brilliant insight."
Golden hair was matted and clumped with what was almost certainly human blood as she grinned from ear to ear. I looked down at the adventurer's severed head. A face caked in agony and screams stared back at me.
I was in despair.
"No... this isn't life, this can't be life..."
I threw myself onto the bed in the Demon Lord's chamber and rolled back and forth. Behind me, I could hear Laura and Lapis chatting away. The two of them were actually getting along fairly well. I suppose you could call it a shared-suffering bond between subordinates stuck under a terrible boss — something like that must have formed between them.
"Hm? This isn't the reaction the young lady expected. What happened?"
"Lord Dantalion appears to be suffering from a mild case of depression."
"What is this 'depression'?"
"...In the Human Realm, there was no concept of mental illness yet, was there? In the Demon Realm, it's generally understood that just as the body can fall ill, so can the mind. Depression refers to a condition in which some aspect of the mind becomes distorted or twisted, inducing feelings of despondency in the afflicted."
Laura let out a small sigh.
"Hmph, how bizarre. How can one separate body and mind into two things? A problem of the mind is a problem of the body. A weak mind simply reveals a weak physique."
She walked over and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck.
"Get up. You exercise far too little as a rule. When your daily workout consists of firing a crossbow a handful of times at best, when will you ever build muscle or develop endurance?"
"I don't want to! I don't want to get up..."
I clutched the blankets and stubbornly refused to budge.
"A healthy body houses a healthy mind. Now then, Dantalion. Come exercise with me. I'll teach you the training regimen passed down through my family for generations. Even someone as scrawny as you, if you train seriously for two months, will become a muscular man capable of making every woman swoon."
"Your brain is made of muscle if you think exercise can solve everything! I'm mentally exhausted right now! I need rest!"
At that, Laura coolly replied.
"After you're dead, you can rest for eternity."
"I want to rest while I'm still alive!"
A fierce battle erupted over the bed. Since our combat ability stats were roughly even, our exchanges seesawed back and forth. After quite some time, both of us ended up sprawled flat on the bed together.
"Hah... hah... Laura... hah... you're not... hah... any better..."
"A man and a woman... hah... hah... how can it be the same... hhhh..."
We panted like chickens after a cockfight on a sweltering summer day. Only Lapis maintained an upright posture, staring at us with an exasperated look. She resembled someone who'd been thrilled to land a decent part-time job, only to discover the workplace was a mental hospital surrounded entirely by lunatics.
"…Regarding the Black Herb cultivation grounds, our Kunkuska Trading Company will hold sole decision-making authority. Lord Dantalion, serving as an advisory committee member, will receive 5% of the total Black Herb harvest. The contract period is two years. Would this arrangement be acceptable?"
I waved my palm to signal that it didn't really matter to me either way.
According to Lapis, the Kunkuska Trading Company had expected the Black Death to run its course like any other plague and had been purchasing unlimited quantities of Black Herb through the herbalist guild. But I knew the Black Death would continue ravaging the continent's people for roughly the next ten years. Rather than selling off Black Herb for quick profit, I proposed to the Kunkuska Trading Company that we pursue medium- to long-term gains through mass cultivation. They responded with an immediate affirmative. That way, we had secured a new channel for steady, regular income.
'Everything seems to be falling into place smoothly enough.'
Suddenly, Laura caught my eye as she caught her breath right in front of me. Beads of sweat dotted her pale forehead. Her complexion was so fair that even the droplets appeared pure white. Perhaps it was because it had been quite a while since I'd properly satisfied my desires, but just seeing her skin up close was enough to stir something below.
I let out a small laugh.
'Now that things are finally looking up, I'm falling apart.'
Both Lapis and Laura were young, but they were stunningly beautiful. With those girls coming and going as if they practically lived with me, my pitiful patience was already reaching its limit. If I hadn't visited a brothel during the last trading trip to the city, I would have exploded long ago.
Whether she noticed my gaze or not, Laura looked my way. I shook my head as though nothing was the matter.
'She couldn't have noticed, could she?'
If she caught on, it wouldn't just be embarrassing — my entire dignity would be utterly destroyed. Just in case, I checked Laura's mental state.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Laura de Farnese
Race: Human Affiliation: Dantalion's Demon Lord Army
Alignment: Neutral (-10)
Level: 7 Reputation: 520
Occupation: Scholar (D), Strategist (E), Sex Slave (E)
Command: 30 Martial: 10 Intelligence: 33
Politics: 9 Charm: 49 Technique: 1
Affinity: 21
Current Mood: 'Hmph, tomorrow I'm forcing her to exercise whether she likes it or not.'
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Despite being a single-digit level, the stats were dazzling. Fitting the image of a strategist who'd one day make a name across the entire continent, her Command and Intelligence were in the thirties, and—slightly out of nowhere—her Charm stat was close to fifty. Stats-wise, she was the textbook femme fatale. Her disposition, originally Neutral (0), had recently dropped to Neutral (−10) after killing humans, but that was none of my business.
'Okay. No problems here.'
I felt relieved by Laura's inner thoughts. Still, in case she somehow sensed what I was thinking, I casually turned my head away.
That was when I locked eyes straight on with Lapis.
"……."
Gulp. She's suspicious of me!
A cocktail of contempt and dismissal hit me without any filter. Even half-baked Succubus she was, she was still a demon race who governed lust—no wonder Lapis was frighteningly sharp when it came to sensing this sort of thing.
Ever had a girl who barely looks sixteen shoot you a look dripping with disdain? To put it simply, it made me want to bite my tongue and die. I wanted to crawl into a mouse hole and rot away as a shut-in, but if I admitted it now, my pride as a man would crumble, so I brazened it out.
"What's with the look? You got something more to say about the contract?"
"……It seems Lord Dantalion truly does require some 'rest.'"
Lapis placed a peculiar emphasis on the word "rest." She already knew everything, and she was telling me not to bother with pathetic excuses. Ugh.
"Next month, a summit between the Demon Lords will be held in the Demon Realm."
"Huh? Something like that exists?"
"Traditionally, the Kunkuska Trading Company—allegedly neutral and beholden to no Demon Lord—hosts the summit under the banner of impartiality. It convenes once every ten years, but this time an official invitation will also be dispatched to Lord Dantalion."
Lapis stared at me with a blank expression.
"Why not take the opportunity to visit the Demon Realm and have the Slave Brand on Lady Farnese handled at the same time? I've already located a mage capable of dealing with human Slave Brands. I assure you it will be a most satisfactory period of rest."
"……Uh, uh. Can't I just go to the Demon Realm now? Come to think of it, I've never even been to the Demon Realm, and I'm not sure my sanity will hold out until next month."
"So be it," Lapis said. And just like that, a summer vacation to the Demon Realm was added to the schedule.